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Synesthesia Vs. Crossmodal Illusions

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Synesthesia Vs. Crossmodal Illusions OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/3/2017, SPi 2 Synesthesia vs. Crossmodal Illusions Casey O’Callaghan 2.1 Two opposing perspectives on synesthesia We can discern two opposing viewpoints regarding synesthesia. On one hand, to borrow from Harrison’s (2001) book title, synesthesia is “The Strangest Thing.” It is an oddity, an outlier, or a disordered condition. A history of skepticism questions whether it even exists. It has been described as “incredible,”“controver- sial,”“mysterious,”“unbelievable,” and “romantic neurology.” On the other hand, synesthesia is touted as pervasive. It is the heart of nearly any distinctively human cognitive achievement. Ramachandran and Hubbard (2001, 2003a,b), for example, suggest that synesthesia helps explain metaphor, creativity, and the origins of language itself. Which is it? Ultimately, I favor the first perspective, according to which cross- sensory synesthesia is an outlying condition. But the second perspective is not wholly misguided. My discussion has three lessons. First, synesthesia is just one of a variety of effects in which one sense modality causally impacts and reshapes experience associated with another. These effects are utterly common. However, due to their unfamiliarity and their conflict with a widespread conception of the role of the senses in perception and perceptual experience, until recently they have been surprising. Second, synesthesia nevertheless must be distinguished from other intermodal effects that lead to misperception, such as crossmodal illusions. Third, synesthesia also may be distinguished from the potentially much broader class of synesthetic effects,whichcouldbecommonacrossthepopulationand within individuals. Section 2.2 characterizes synesthesia, section 2.3 characterizes crossmodal illusions, and section 2.4 contrasts synesthesia with crossmodal illusions. Section 2.5 contrasts synesthesia with synesthetic effects and presents a conciliatory take on the two viewpoints concerning synesthesia. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/3/2017, SPi SYNESTHESIA VS. CROSSMODAL ILLUSIONS 2.2 Cross-sensory synesthesia Stereotypical synesthesia involves stimulation to one sensory system that gives rise to an experience of a type that is typically associated with another sensory modality. This concurrent experience generally is not a case of veridical perception. Synesthesia has numerous varieties. Some are familiar. Synesthetes may have color experiences in response to sounds or sound experiences in response to visible colors. They may experience graphemes as colored, or days of the week or months of the year as occupying specific locations in space around the body. Other forms of synesthesia are striking. Some synesthetes have tactual or bodily sensations when hearing sounds, or specific taste experiences in response to visible letters or graph- emes. Some experience distinctive textural attributes that are prompted by tastes and flavors. The examples multiply.1 Contrary to earlier skepticism, current evidence shows that synesthesia exists, that it sometimes manifests as a conscious phenomenon, and that it may involve robust qualitative phenomenology. For instance, grapheme–color synesthesia can generate Stroop interference. It can also improve response times in visual search tasks. However, search times generally do increase with display complexity, so search remains serial rather than parallel, and the effect is not strong enough to support robust popout. Moreover, synesthetic experiences may require focal attention and thus be incapable of capturing exogenous attention. Nevertheless, the most convin- cing evidence in support of synesthesia is that synesthetes, when compared with non-synesthetes, are remarkably consistent on matching tasks through a great many trials distributed over long periods of time. Synesthetes more accurately match synesthetic concurrents prompted by a particular stimulus than memory should allow. For instance, time after time, year after year, a synesthete might match just the same shade of blue to the letter “G.”2 How should we characterize synesthesia? As a first pass, we might say that synesthesia occurs when stimulation to one sensory system causes an experience of a type or with a character that is usually associated with another sensory modality. For instance, according to Harrison (2001), “Synaesthesia is a confusion of the senses, whereby stimulation of one sense triggers stimulation in a completely different sensory modality.” Wager (1999: 264) says, “According to the standard definition, synaesthesia is a condition in which stimulation of one sensory modality automatically produces an additional experience typical of another, unstimulated sensory modality.” And, according to Harrison and Baron-Cohen (1997: 66), synesthesia occurs, “when stimulation of one sensory modality automatically triggers a perception in a second modality, in the absence of any direct stimulation to this second modality.” 1 For an overview, see, e.g., Baron-Cohen and Harrison (1997); Cytowic (2002); Cytowic and Eagleman (2009). On sound–touch synesthesia, see Beauchamp and Ro (2008). 2 See, e.g., Eagleman et al. (2007). OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/3/2017, SPi CASEY O’CALLAGHAN Macpherson (2007: 66, note 8) quotes this characterization and observes, “This definition is widely cited in the literature.” There are several things to note about this sort of characterization. First, it assumes that we have a good grasp on what it is for an experience or its character to be in, of, or associated with a given sensory modality. Since my topic is neither the individu- ation of sensory modalities nor the typing of experiences or their phenomenology by modality, I’ll simply presuppose in what follows that an account typing experiences by sensory modality is feasible. Second, it assumes that the synesthetic concurrent is in or of the unstimulated modality, rather than in or of the stimulated modality, or in or of no determinate modality at all. Auvray and Deroy (2015) provide a valuable discussion of why this assumption is suspect as it stands. Thus, for the sake of discussion, I’ll reinterpret the claim that the synesthetic concurrent is in or of the unstimulated modality as the claim that it involves an experience as of a given quality or feature that is of an experiential type whose instances typically occur through stimulation of that modal- ity rather than the inducer. Third, there is a great deal of variety in how synesthetic experiences manifest—in their intensity and in their qualitative and phenomenological character. To take an example, there is a longstanding debate between researchers who think there are projectors and associators and those who think there are simply localizers and nonlocalizers. While this debate concerns the nature of synesthetic experiences, both parties agree that some synesthetes experience qualitative features as located in distal space and that some synesthetes do not. Given this variety, we may distinguish what I’ll dub “philosophical synesthesia” from other sorts of synesthesia. Say that a synesthetically induced experience is a case of philosophical synesthesia just in case it is qualitatively indistinguishable from having a typical perceptual experience as of the instantiation of the relevant feature. For instance, philosophical grapheme–color synesthesia might involve having per- ceptual experiences that are phenomenologically or introspectively indistinguishable from seeing a red “8.” Synesthesia need not be philosophical synesthesia. For instance, imagery, vivid or diffuse, may suffice. Fourth, synesthesia need not involve two distinct sensory modalities. For instance, the stimulus or trigger might not be to a sensory system at all. Thinking about a number could be enough to trigger a color experience, as could an affective or emotional stimulus. Even the familiarity of a face can trigger synesthetic color experiences. Moreover, synesthesia commonly involves only one sense modality. For example, low-level grapheme–color synesthesia involves vision alone, and thus is intra-sensory. So, synesthesia is not necessarily cross-sensory. It has more to do with a lack of stimulation of the appropriate variety. Hubbard (2007: 193) thus says that synesthesia occurs when “stimulation in one sensory or cognitive stream leads to associated experiences in a second, unstimu- lated stream.” Similarly, Brogaard (2012) says, “Synesthesia is a condition in which OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 20/3/2017, SPi SYNESTHESIA VS. CROSSMODAL ILLUSIONS stimulation in one sensory or cognitive stream involuntarily, or automatically, leads to associated internal or external (illusory or hallucinatory) experiences in a second unstimulated sensory or cognitive system.” Wikipedia (November 27, 2014) even characterizes synesthesia as “a neurological phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.” Since I want to contrast synesthesia with other crossmodal effects that involve misperception, I’ll simply restrict the discussion that follows to cross-sensory varieties of synesthesia. 2.3 Crossmodal illusions Consider a related class of effects in which stimulation to one sensory system affects experience that is associated with another sensory modality in a way that leads to illusion. A crossmodal perceptual illusion is a case in which activity in one sensory system causally impacts processes associated with another sensory system and thereby generates a non-veridical
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